Nigeria could get coronavirus vaccine in 10 days

Africa News of Sunday February 21, 2021

Source: mynigeria.com

02/21/2021

Health Minister Dr Osagie Ehanire said in Lagos on Saturday that Nigeria could receive COVID-19 vaccines within the next 10 days.

“We are told that by the end of this month, that is to say in about 10 days, we will have the vaccines.

“We don’t produce the vaccines. They are made abroad in about four or five countries, ”he told reporters at the end of an inspection visit to Lagos University Hospital, Idi-Araba.

Ehanire explained that the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Russia and China that had successfully produced the vaccines have now granted licenses to other countries to reproduce them.

“South Africa has a license to manufacture the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccines, while Russia has only recently given India the license to produce AstraZeneca,” the minister said.

He said the countries producing the vaccines had serious challenges with COVID-19 and decided to address their needs first, a situation the WHO described as vaccine nationalism.

Ehanire noted that while the whole world was suffering from the throes of COVID-19, about 75% of vaccines already produced were being used in 10 countries.

The minister stressed that Nigeria had set up all the facilities to receive the vaccines.

Welcoming the minister earlier, LUTH chief medical director Professor Chris Bode asked the minister to help him recruit 350 nurses, 50 consultants and 150 doctors.

Bode said the hospital also needed an oxygen plant and increased funding to build a four-story isolation center, run the hospital efficiently and pay huge monthly electricity bills.